The invention concerns itself with a method for the production of a multi-channel sound signal by means of sound-recording and reproducing apparatus.
In addition, the invention has to do with the apparatus for the recording and/or reproduction of sound signals in accordance with the aforementioned method, using a sound carrier and associated reproducing and/or recording devices, wherein a first information band has been assigned to one sound signal, together with a control device that supplies the sound signal to the various output channels, in accordance with the control parameters of the code signal or signals.
It has been suggested earlier to apply control tracings to a tape-like recording carrier, these control tracings being used to control automatic regulating systems for the sound reproduction. These control tracings are determined by various frequencies. When the recording carrier is scanned, the control signals give impulse to resonance circuits which will then regulate the sound volume, the light intensity for the projection of a movie film, or the sound quality.
In addition, a method is already known for a stereophonic sound recording and/or sound transcription, in accordance with which a one-channel sound signal may be admixed with a sound recording that has already been completed, e.g., on two tracks on a magnetic tape. The first sound signal that has been recorded in two tracks will then be heard sterophonically during the reproduction. If the amplitudes of the monaural signal in the individual track positions were chosen so as to be different and when the single-channel or monaural signal was admixed to the two channels of the stereophonic signal, when the entire sound signal is produced, there will be an effect making it possible to locate the admixrf monaural sound signal, e.g., between the two loudspeakers connected to the reproducing equipment. For that reason, the monaural signal may be assigned for its reproduction to any chosen location between the loudspeakers of the reproducing equipment following the setting of the ratio of amplitudes during the recording of the monaural signal.
This known method has the disadvantage in that basically the recording equipment must be designed in such a way that a multi-channel recording of sound signals is possible. To that end, the equipment of both recording channels and reproducing channels has to be designed in a completely homogeneous way so as to make possible an unbiased spatial reproduction of sound signals. The recording carrier must in this method, as a matter of course, permit a homogeneously qualitative storage of sound signals in both tracks. Beyond that, it can hardly be expected from a sound movie amateur that he should prepare several interim transcripts in order to make possible the localization of a sound event, as is absolutely required by the last-named method. Lastly, the recording carrier manufactured in accordance with the known method can hardly be replayed on an instrument that has single-channel reproducing equipment only, since it may happen that essential parts of the sound information are stored in other tracks that cannot be scanned by this instrument.